Conceptual design report for a Direct Hydrogen Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cell for transportation application

Technical Report · Tue Sep 05 04:00:00 EDT 1995

DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/125026· OSTI ID:125026

This report presents the conceptual design for a Direct-Hydrogen-Fueled Proton Exchange Membrane (PEM) Fuel Cell System for transportation applications. The design is based on the initial selection of the Chrysler LH sedan as the target vehicle with a 50 kW (gross) PEM Fuel Cell Stack (FCS) as the primary power source, a battery-powered Load Leveling Unit (LLU) for surge power requirements, an on-board hydrogen storage subsystem containing high pressure gaseous storage, a Gas Management Subsystem (GMS) to manage the hydrogen and air supplies for the FCS, and electronic controllers to control the electrical system. The design process has been dedicated to the use of Design-to-Cost (DTC) principles. The Direct Hydrogen-Powered PEM Fuel Cell Stack Hybrid Vehicle (DPHV) system is designed to operate on the Federal Urban Driving Schedule (FUDS) and Hiway Cycles. These cycles have been used to evaluate the vehicle performance with regard to range and hydrogen usage. The major constraints for the DPHV vehicle are vehicle and battery weight, transparency of the power system and drive train to the user, equivalence of fuel and life cycle costs to conventional vehicles, and vehicle range. The energy and power requirements are derived by the capability of the DPHV system to achieve an acceleration from 0 to 60 MPH within 12 seconds, and the capability to achieve and maintain a speed of 55 MPH on a grade of seven percent. The conceptual design for the DPHV vehicle is shown in a figure. A detailed description of the Hydrogen Storage Subsystem is given in section 4. A detailed description of the FCS Subsystem and GMS is given in section 3. A detailed description of the LLU, selection of the LLU energy source, and the power controller designs is given in section 5.

• Research Organization: Pentastar Electronics, Inc., Huntsville, AL (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE, Washington, DC (United States)
• DOE Contract Number: AC02-94CE50390
• OSTI ID: 125026
• Report Number(s): DOE/CE/50390--9; ON: DE96002089
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

08 HYDROGEN
25 ENERGY STORAGE
30 DIRECT ENERGY CONVERSION
33 ADVANCED PROPULSION SYSTEMS
AUXILIARY SYSTEMS
DESIGN
ENGINEERING DRAWINGS
GAS CYLINDERS
HYBRID ELECTRIC-POWERED VEHICLES
HYDROGEN FUEL CELLS
HYDROGEN STORAGE
LEAD-ACID BATTERIES
LIFE-CYCLE COST
PERFORMANCE
SOLID ELECTROLYTE FUEL CELLS
SPECIFICATIONS